Practice, Research, and Cognition in Devised Performance

This interdisciplinary study of devised theatre explores devising as research practice through the intersection of cognitive sciences and the arts. It interrogates relationships between epistemology and cognition, action and aesthetics, and first-person experience and third-person investigation. Pairing practice research methodologies from theatre and performance with cognitive and neuroscientific approaches - both theoretical and empirical - it reveals new insights into the practices of collective creation in theatre. To foreground the insider knowledge inherent to practice research, the main case studies are works created and performed by Maiya Murphy''s international movement-based devising collective, Autopoetics. Autopoetics'' work is contextualized in reference to major international devising companies including Complicite, Tectonic Theater Project, SITI Company, Frantic Assembly, and Gecko Theatre, and empirical and practice-based research on embodied performance including major dance projects such as The Watching Dance Project and Motion Bank. Practice, Research, and Cognition in Devised Performance proposes a model for breaking down disciplinary silos to freshly access the processes of collaborative practice and invigorate research in the humanities and arts.

Product details

• Authors: Maiya Murphy
• Assisted by: John Lutterbie (Editor of the series), Nicola Shaughnessy (Editor of the series)
• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 21.08.2025
• EAN: 9781350279452
• ISBN: 978-1-350-27945-2
• No. of pages: 232
• Series: Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; DRAMA / General, PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / General, Singapore, Theatre Studies, 21st century, c 2000 to c 2100, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Other performing arts, Cognitive studies